Hereinunder attached is vauely on-topic, though spins some unneccessarily self-important new jargon. They don't quite seem to get that TCPIP is fundamentally P2P from the bits up. I like the phrase "disruptive compliance". The Net has a passive-aggressive personality?
Ken > Waging peace on the Internet > > By Oxblood RuffinPosted: 19/04/2002 at 15:56 GMT > Hacking is a contact sport. > The more people who have contact with one another, the better. > -- Shaolin Punk, > Proxy Boss, > Hacktivismo > > There's an international book burning in progress; the surveillance cameras > are rolling; and the water canons are drowning freedom of assembly. But it's > not occurring anywhere that television can broadcast to the world. It's > happening in cyberspace. > > Certain countries censor access to information on the Web through DNS (Domain > Name Service) filtering. This is a process whereby politically challenging > information is blocked by domain address (the name that appears before the > dot-com/net/org suffix, as in Tibet.com, etc.). State censors also filter for > politically or socially-unacceptable ideas in e-mail. And individual privacy > rights and community gatherings are similarly regulated. > > China is often identified as the world's worst offender with its National > Firewall and arrests for on-line activity. But the idea that the new > Mandarins could have pulled this off by themselves is absurd. The Chinese > have aggressively targeted the Western software giants, not only as a means > of acquiring technical know-how, but also as agents for influencing Western > governments to their advantage through well-established corporate networks of > political lobbying. Everything is for sale: names, connections, and even > national security. > > Witnessing hi-tech firms dive into China is like watching the Gadarene swine. > Already fat and greedy beyond belief, the Western technology titans are being > herded towards the trough. And with their snouts deep in the feedbag, they > haven't quite noticed the bacon being trimmed off their ass. It isn't so much > a case of technology transfer as digital strip-mining. Advanced research and > technical notes are being handed over to the Chinese without question. It > couldn't be going better for the Communists. While bootstrapping their > economy with the fruits of Western labor and ingenuity, they gain the tools > to prune democracy on the vine. > > But to focus on Beijing's strategy misses the larger opportunity of treating > the spreading sickness that plagues cyberspace. Cuba not only micromanages > its citizens' on-line experience, it has recently refused to sell them > computers, the US trade embargo notwithstanding. Most countries indulging in > censorship claim to be protecting their citizens from pornographic contagion. > But the underlying motive is to prevent challenging opinions from spreading > and coalescing through the chokehold of state-sponsored control. This > includes banning information that ranges from political opinion, religious > witness, "foreign" news, academic and scholarly discovery, news of human > rights abuses all the intellectual exchange that an autocratic leadership > considers to be destabilizing. > > The capriciousness of state-sanctioned censorship is wide-ranging. > > * In Zambia, the government attempted to censor information revealing their > plans for constitutional referenda. > > * In Mauritania - as in most countries - owners of cybercafis are required to > supply government intelligence agents with copies of e-mail sent or received > at their establishments. > > * Even less draconian governments, like Malaysia, have threatened > Web-publishers, whose only crime is to publish frequent Web site updates. > Timely and relevant information is seen as a threat. > > * South Korea's national security law forbids South Koreans from any contact > - including contact over the Internet - with their North Korean neighbors. > > The risks of accessing or disseminating information are often great. > > * In Ukraine, a decapitated body found near the village of Tarachtcha is > believed to be that of Georgiy Gongadze, founder and editor of an on-line > newspaper critical of the authorities. > > * In August 1998, an eighteen year old Turk, Emre Ersoz, was found guilty of > "insulting the national police" in an Internet forum after participating in a > demonstration that was violently suppressed by the police. His ISP provided > the authorities with his address. > > * Journalist Miroslav Filipovic has the dubious distinction of having been > the first journalist accused of spying because his articles detailed the > abuses of certain Yugoslav army units in Kosovo, and were published on the > Internet. > > These are dangerous trends for all of us. The Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) and > Hacktivismo are not prepared to watch the Internet's lights dim simply > because liberal democracies are asleep at the switch. > > Our fathers and grandfathers fought wars defending, among other things,- our > right to speak and be heard. They even fought to defend unpopular opinions. > It is the unpopular opinions that are most in need of defense. Without them, > society would remain unchallenged and unwilling to review core beliefs. It is > this tension between received truths and challenging ones that keeps > societies healthy and honest. And any attempt at preventing the open exchange > of ideas should be seen for what it is:- censorship. > > For the past four years the cDc has been talking about hacktivism. It's a > chic word, beloved among journalists and appropriators alike. Yet the meaning > is serious. Our definition of hacktivism is, "using technology to advance > human rights through electronic media." Many on-line activists claim to be > hacktivists, but their tactics are often at odds with what we consider > hacktivism to be. > > >From the cDc's perspective, creation is good; destruction is bad. Hackers > should promote the free flow of information, and causing anything to disrupt, > prevent, or retard that flow is improper. For instance, cDc does not consider > Web defacements or Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to be legitimate > hacktivist actions. The former is nothing more than hi-tech vandalism, and > the latter, an assault on free speech. > > As we begin to challenge state-sponsored censorship of the Internet, we need > to get our own house in order. There have to be accepted standards of what > constitutes legitimate hacktivism, and what does not. And of course, none of > this will be easy. Hacktivism is a very new field of endeavor that doesn't > rely on mere technical expedience. We have to find new paradigms. (Tossing > the letter E in front of a concept that has meaning in meat-space, to borrow > a term from the Electronic Disturbance Theatre, is convenient but rarely > meaningful). There is no such thing as electronic civil disobedience. Body > mass and large numbers don't count as they do on the street. On the Internet, > it's the code that counts, specifically code and programmers with conscience. > > We need to start thinking in terms of disruptive compliance rather than civil > disobedience if we want to be effective on-line. Disruptive compliance has no > meaning outside of cyberspace. Disruptive, of course, refers to disruptive > technology, a radically new way of doing things; compliance refers back to > the Internet and its original intent of constructive free-flow and openness. > > But what disruptively compliant, hacktivist applications shall we write, and > more importantly, how shall we write them? There are essentially two ways of > writing computer programs: closed/proprietary, and, open/public. In > non-technical terms, a closed program would be like a menu item in a > restaurant for which there was no recipe. An open program would be like a > dish for which every ingredient, proportion, and method of preparation was > published. Microsoft is an example of a closed, hi-tech restaurant; Linux is > its stellar opposite, an open code cafeteria where all is laid bare. For > years the technical community has been raging over the absolutes of closed > over open code, an argument only slightly more boring than whether Macs are > better than PCs. > > The answer to this debate is relative; it leans closer to the user's > requirements than to the geek community's biases. If the user wants an > inflexible, controlled - and often insecure - experience, then closed is the > way to go. But if the user opts for greater variety and freedom from control, > then flexible, open code is the only option. The choices are similar, > although not equivalent, to living in an authoritarian society as opposed to > a free one. > > Hacktivism chooses open code, mostly. Although there might be very specific > instances where we would choose to obscure or hide code, going by the > averages we support the same standards-based, open code methodology that > built the Internet in the first place. It is germane that users of hacktivist > applications sitting behind national firewalls in China and other repressive > regimes are more worried about being caught with 'criminal software' than > crashing their computers. End user safety is paramount in such instances, and > if closing down code would prevent arrests, then so be it. Techno-correctness > is a luxury of the already free. > > There are numerous arguments for open code, from the rhapsodic possibilities > of the Open Source Initiative, through the demotic juggernaut of the Free > Software Foundation, to the debate laden pages of Slashdot with its > creditable fetish for better security. And everyone is right in his or her > own way. But there is another compelling reason to show the code apart from > any technical or philosophical considerations. > > The field is getting crowded. > > Four years ago when cDc first started talking about hacktivism, most Internet > users didn't know, or care, about things like state-sponsored censorship or > privacy issues. But now the terrain has changed. Increasingly human rights > organizations, religious and political groups, and even software developers, > are entering the fray, each for unique reasons. It would be premature to call > such an unlikely accretion of stakeholders a coalition. In fact, there is > every reason to believe there are greater opportunities for carping over > differences than leveraging common cause into shared success. But open code > may become the glue that binds. > > As more and more disparate groups attempt to loosen dictators' restraints > over Internet, it's important to keep focused on their common goals and not > petty differences. The more transparent and crystalline their progress > towards collective goals becomes, the more likely it is that those objectives > will be achieved. Open code, like the open and inclusive nature of democratic > discourse itself, will prove to be the lingua franca of hacktivism. And > perhaps more importantly, it will demonstrate that hacktivists are waging > peace, not war. > > In 1968 the Canadian communications guru Marshall McLuhan stated, "World War > Three will be a guerilla information war with no division between military > and civilian participation." > > Anyone who's watched the Web after an international incident knows how true > that statement is. Teenagers from China have attacked sites in Taiwan and the > U.S., and vice versa, just to name one claque of combatants. And although the > exchanges are more annoying than truly damaging, they do support McLuhan's > theory. As the Internet erupts into battle zones, Hacktivists could become > something akin to a United Nations peacekeeping force. But rather than being > identified by blue helmets, they'll be recognized by the openness of their > code and the quality and safety of their applications designed to defeat > censorship and challenge national propaganda. > > One key to countering the cadres of information censors in China and > elsewhere is the fluidity of open code projects. Another is through > peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. P2P has floated into public awareness mostly as > a result of the Napster phenomenon. The 'peers' on the network are computers, > and yet not so different from a society of peers in a democracy. Some are > more powerful than others, but they all have common attributes. This is in > contrast with the traditional, and more pervasive, client/server network > mechanism, where little computers go to big ones and ask for something, be it > a Web page, an application, or even processing power. > > What is most interesting about P2P technologies is that they turn the > much-ballyhooed Information Superhighway into a two-way street. Peers become > both clients and servers, or 'clervers' as one naming convention has it. > Files can be shared, a la Napster; or processes from one or many partner > computers can be strung together to create supercomputers, among other > things. What makes these systems attractive to hacktivist developers is they > are difficult to shut down. Large central servers are easy to locate and take > down. But clouds of peers in numerous arrays springing up around the > datascape are far more problematic. > > This is not to say that P2P networks are invincible. Napster got shut down. > But when the salt is out of the shaker, it's hard to get it back in. With > Naptser down, a legion of even more powerful file-trading devices arose to > take its place. The fact that Napster was easy to use and didn't require a > steep learning curve was also key to its success, other convergences > notwithstanding. This is fundamental to anyone hoping to appeal to > non-technical users, many of whom are partially blinded and deafened by > national firewalls. > > The target user is socially engaged, but not necessarily technically adept. > Beneath the surface the programs can be as complicated as you please, but on > top, from the functionality/usability perspective, the apps have to be dead > simple and easy to use. And they have to be trustworthy. > > Here is where the Napster analogy breaks down. Trust was never a paramount > factor in using the application. It was a fun loving network developed on the > free side of the firewall, where users' greatest worries were, a) Can I find > what I want? b) How long will it take to download? c) Is it of good quality? > and, d) Do I have time to download four more tunes before I go to the keg > party? > > No one ever had to ask, a) If I'm caught using this, will I be arrested? b) > Is this application good for ten years in jail? > > Having millions of students on the Napster network made sense because the > more users there are on-line, the larger the lending library becomes. Users > behind national firewalls cannot be so casual. Having millions of users on a > network may be one thing, but only a fool would trust more than his or her > closest friends when the consequences of entrapment are so high. Thus, > carefree peer-to-peer networks are replaced by careful > hacktivist-to-hacktivist (H2H) networks. > > H2H networks are like nuclear families living in large communities. Everyone > may live in the same area, but each family has its own home where the doors > open, close, and lock. And occasionally, a family member will bring someone > new home. Everyone will sit around the living room, and if all goes well, the > guest will be shown the library, perhaps, and maybe even someone's bedroom. > All of this is based on earned trust. H2H networks will operate along these > lines, where families will share a space and grant permission to one another > as well as to certain visitors. The greater the trust, the more permissions > will be granted; and for guests visiting the home, trust will be earned > incrementally. > > This model is already in existence, more or less. Using the Internet to > communicate between known and trusted computers is a fact of business life. > Virtual Private Networks are used daily to communicate sensitive and > proprietary data. The same can be done by taking elements of this model and > marrying them to H2H network development. But saying is not doing, and even > the best marriages can unravel and fail. It's important to realize these > things are possible but have never been done before. > > Building H2H networks is not just a matter of guessing at how particular > technologies will respond under fire. Hackers must know what users in the > field need. We have been telling anyone who will listen that hackers, > grassroots activists, and other parties who care about Internet freedom and > the growth of democracy must partner up and work together. > > Hacktivismo has been working with Chinese hackers and human rights workers, > and the collaboration has been both fruitful and energizing. Occasionally > there are cultural conflicts, but this has nothing to do with where anyone > was born, and everything to do with how people get things done. Hackers tend > towards MIT professor Dave Clark's credo which states, "We reject: kings, > presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code." > Trust will come as development partners begin working more closely and > learning that we aren't so different as we appear at the surface. > > Research and development is phase one. Then comes distribution. Hackers have > never had a problem distributing software. If you write something worth > running, it will end up in every corner of the globe, something else we've > learned from experience. > > Leveraging existing distribution channels with those of our partners will > ensure that users who most need liberating software will get it. Some human > rights organizations have vast e-mail databases that will become increasingly > invaluable for raising awareness, and in some instances, act as a > distribution layer. Other areas of co-operation are also possible, especially > in translations for non-English users where documentation and re-skinning > U.I.s [the process of replacing the user interface of an application from, > say, English to Chinese, or Arabic, etc.] will take development to ever-wider > usefulness. > > Last, although certainly not least, we need to acknowledge the Chinese > government for their unwitting contributions to Hacktivismo's work. After > reverse engineering some of their fundamental technologies we've discovered a > few cracks where the light might shine through. But it does raise the > question: why are we put in the position of doing this work? With billions of > dollars in government budgets at their disposal, when are the world's liberal > democracies going to put some of their resources into opening up the > Internet? We know they don't care about human rights policy when it conflicts > with jobs at home; but what about international security? As Beijing > continues to play the patriotism card domestically, a more open Internet > could diffuse traditional xenophobia through greater one-on-one interaction > on-line. > > But until Western governments become engaged, the main challenge for hackers > is to keep focused on the goal of liberating the Internet. We realize that, > but for the grace of God, we could be sitting on the other side of the > firewall. It's a sentiment that is being picked up, although it would be a > lie to say that thousands of hackers want to get into the game. > > Still, enough are beginning to take up this cause that we should be able to > see results, if new partnerships hold. There's a new generation of freedom > fighters, sitting behind computers, who believe that it can be done. . > > Related Links > The Hacktivismo Declaration > Reporters Without Frontiers > The Free Software Foundation > The Open Source Initiative > > About the cDc > Based in Lubbock, Texas, the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) was founded in 1984 > and is the most influential group of hackers on the Internet. The cDc is > dedicated to protecting the online privacy rights of all Internet users. Its > mission is to eliminate the abuse of Internet privacy that is rampant in the > United States and throughout the world. For more information on the cDc, > please visit www.cultdeadcow.com > > About Hacktivismo > Hacktivismo is a special group within the cDc committed to developing > technologies in support of the highest standards of human rights. It is > comprised of hackers, human rights workers, and artists from North America, > Europe, Israel, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China. For more > information, please visit www.hacktivismo.com > > =============================================== > Information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe to the cyber-rights-UK > mailing list is at <http://www.cyber-rights.org/mailing.htm>. > ===============================================
